2010 Haunted Forest and Cornfield at Meadowbrook Pumpkin Farm Event Reviews

Freakin' Exhaustin'! This is one haunt you want to set aside the whole night for, 'cause it's going to put you through the ringer and back again. Sweet satan, it's a 45 minute hike through a maze of the tallest corn this reviewer and companions have ever seen, they grow 'em big up there in West Bend, maybe it's something in the water, something like...Evil! You're literally wandering through corridors of corn here, it must have been 15 feet high, I kid you not, constant reader, twice the height of a normal person. There's a nice mix of animatronic and live actors sprinkled throughout the haunt, as well as various scenes and little buildings placed at spots in the maze to keep your interest up. You're literally trapped in some of the scenes, too, which is wonderfully unsettling, we ended up banging on walls at one place to try to find an exit, of which there turned out to be none -- these ghouls don't screw around!

Signage / Visibility / Location

Follow directions from Google, very easy to find, it's on a working farm that appears to have the farmer's house right smack in the middle of all the action, that must be very sweet as they lay their sleepy heads down upon their pillows and fall asleep to the screams of terror emanating over their rolling hills and pastures.

Wait Area / Line Entertainment

As I said, it's a working farm, and there are a bunch of things to do, like shop in the little store (lots of Halloween stuff and craft stuff in several rooms), and you can get stuff to eat at a little stand that gives its money to a German Shepherd rescue organization; it has things like hamburgers and brats and popcorn and candy bars and there are a bunch of picnic tables at the bonfire that you can go eat at. You buy your tickets at the store checkout counter, and then get a bracelet with a number on it. They have an LED sign system with several locations on the farm, so you can wander around a little and watch for your number to be called; they call numbers in groups of 50, and then you go line up and wait to get let into the haunt. There's also a "quickline" ticket that allows you to get directly in line without waiting.

There are also a bunch of living animals in various fenced-off areas that you can marvel at or bother while you wait, like a donkey (whose braying was pretty creepy), emus (yes, emus), ducks and geese, llamas, goats, and then there was Bunnytown, which has little bunnies all romping about, apparently impervious to the terror being visited on the humans only tens of feet away -- where is your sense of decency, little bunnies? There's also a bonfire you can go sit around; there appeared to be a large man in a black leather hat and coat with a cane tending the bonfire, and I got the impression he may tell spooky stories or something, but we didn't hear any while we were there, though we were there quite early. No ghouls wandering around that we saw, but that was okay, the freakin' haunt is 45 minutes long, and you don't really need any pre-show entertainment.

Actors' Performance

Now, there are a mix of animatronic and real actors in this haunt, sometimes its hard to tell who is who, but the actors we did definitively run into were topnotch and taking their terrorizing (and being terrified, sorry about abandoning you, oh Strung-Up-By-the-Giant-Spiders-Guy!) very seriously. Shout out to the gentleman running the Meat Treats stand and there's a scene where the walls move and you are literally locked in with a bunch of horrifying ghouls who really really really mean business. Also, excellent clownwork, these clowns really know how to work it..."Never trust anything a clown says!"

Sets Scenes / Props / FX

We were impressed. Scenes have clearly been thought out, and the ghouls haunting them are really good, but beware, it's a really long maze, and there will be some lag-time between the more coherent scenes and the things that just sometimes pop out of the corn on hydraulic lifts. This is actually okay, though, there's something really cool about just walking through a literal tunnel of 15-foot high corn and seeing the moon shining down on you as you wait to see what's around the next bend. They obviously really put a lot of time into this and it's clear someone here really really loves Halloween and scaring the peoples. Some of the animatronic stuff is really extremely convincing, there were actually a couple of times in which we were never sure if what was going on was animatronic or a live actor, which is a compliment to the animatronics and not a slam on the excellent actors!

Also ghouls are placed in odd locations, like above you and on the ground level, which makes things even more disorienting and unsettling.

Loved that there were also emergency exits thoughtfully placed throughout the haunt, helpfully marked "Chicken Gate," and just to add a little extra sumthin' sumthin', there appeared to be ghouls lurking just behind the "Chicken Gates!" Perhaps chicken is a favorite delicacy amongst the ghouls, and this ends up acting like a kind of feeding trough.
Oh, there are also lots of strobes and fog machines and stuff, so be ready for that; man, they don't kid around with the strobes, either -- bring your epileptic friends if you want to see a real show! Kidding!

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:

Excellent excellent excellent op-art house with accompanying op-art clown, and a really cool decaying pirate ship. Very cool webbing area with a screaming web-cocooned man, and one house with the uplifting title of "Welcome to Hell," boasts not only a scene where you're locked in with a bunch of ghouls, but then the ceiling, which has huge spikes in it, starts to slowly lower, and, good lord, there's no door to get out of. There's also a giant octopus, yes, a giant octopus, now how cool is that?

Length

Wait for us was negligible, we were there early, and the haunt itself took 45 minutes or more to get through. It's an entire night's entertainment, you won't need to go to another haunt that night.

Crowd Control

They let you in groups of 4-6, and people are spaced out well, we could hear groups behind us sometimes, but I think the ghouls would try to delay people in order to let other groups get ahead.

Most Memorable Moment

Disorienting House with its Disorienting Accompanying Clown, and Welcome to Hell.

And just to say it again, two words -- Giant Octopus.

One never knows what they will come across in a cornfield in Washington County, as it turns out.

On your visit to the Haunted Cornfield, you will traverse a glowing spider web and eventually meet its spitting creator.

There is a pirate ship with its captain and a surprise guest.

Throughout the field, you will encounter glowing red and white eyes staring at you from the dark amidst the sounds of the night.

There are witches brewing concoctions in cauldrons and aliens that have found earth to be a fertile area for colonization.

You will meet the Wolfman and will contemplate a solitary walk through a graveyard.

On your trip, you will pass through a house of confusion with tapestry the same pattern as the walls.

Prior to entering the maze, there are plenty of options for how to spend your time.

The Cornfield is a pumpkin farm and has an impressive array of pumpkins, squash and gourds to buy.

There is also a gift shop on site selling Halloween themed gifts and a snack area selling cider and caramel apples among other fall treats.

The staff maintain a raised fire pit and snacks are sold in that area.

I am told they tell scary stories around the fire. When I visited, people sat and enjoyed the warmth in silence awaiting their call into the field.

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We arrived, the parking was ample. We got our wristbands and headed to the campfire, where a gentleman was telling ghost stories. Our wait was fairly quick about 10 minutes or so, however, I advise you; generally your wait will be longer especially the closer to Halloween it is. Once we got to the line we were let right in as our own two person group which is nice because you have the feeling that you are alone out there, and the only thing that brings you back to the reality of that others are in the haunt as well, are the many screams you hear all around you.

Once in the corn field, you are instantly brought into another world where fear is fun and screams are equivalent to happiness. The actors are good, the effects are better, and the animatronics are out of this world! I can't tell you the exact number of different scenes but they are abundant so you are never walking for two long without serious entertainment. It took my guest and me about an hour to finish the haunt and it was a fully packed hour with creepy feelings, jumps aplenty, and scares that would knock your socks off, if that was actually possible. This is a great haunt and recommend anyone over the age of 16 to go now.

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One of my favorite haunted corn mazes is The Meadowbrook Haunted Cornfield, because other than the monsters waiting to frighten you in the maze, they offer such a great Halloween atmosphere as well. They offer many different fun and spooky things to do for both kids and adults, day and night.

I attended the farm in the evening, but during the day you can also take a walk through there haunted corn maze for those looking for a little less scares. At night, the corn maze becomes more frightening with more actors ready to jump out at you! During the day they have hay rides, an animal park/petting zoo, over 27 different varieties of pumpkins to chose from in the pumpkin patch, food and beverages while you wait to enter the maze and they do a very good job of creating a fun Halloween atmosphere with Halloween decorations set up around the farm.

The thing I enjoyed the most was the large bonfire they had for those waiting to enter the maze. One of the actors was telling ghost stories by the fire about how the land was really haunted and all the creepy things that had happened to him growing up on the farm. It was such a fun way to start the evening and stay warm while we waited.

Once we made our way into the maze, which was ¾ of a mile of trails through very tall and dense corn stalks, it was clear to me that it was going to be an exciting and creepy adventure. The props are some of the best ones I have seen in a haunt. They were original and did not look like the props you could easily buy from a Halloween store. They did a good job of using fog and strobe lights in some areas of the maze which could be a little disorienting at times and added to the fear of feeling lost in the maze. They used great animatronics in between actors to startle you and keep you on your toes, sometimes it was hard to tell if the shadow ahead was a person ready to chase you or a prop which kept the suspense high. I liked how there were areas throughout the maze with a theme, whether it was Pirates, Aliens, Ghosts or Werewolf's, it was fun to look at the detailed sets.

The wind blowing through the cornstalks kept me feeling as though someone was walking behind me and sometimes a monster was, which was always unexpected and frightening! The last room was probably my favorite because it was the scariest, I don't want to give anything away so I am not going to specify why, but trust me, just when you think you are in the clear, they throw in a little extra scare for you that you wont be ready for!

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